Tom Steyer's $1 million offer to pro-environment candidates

Updated 7:59 am, Wednesday, September 17, 2014

A gigantic new sign will let drivers on the freeway know Tesla is in Fremont.

A gigantic new sign will let drivers on the freeway know Tesla is in Fremont.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Image 2 of 2

Billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer wants 2016 candidates to address what he calls the “urgent” issue of income inequality, specifically laws that allow wealthy private equity managers and venture capitalists to be taxed at a lower rate.

In fact, outgoing state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg recessed the body for 90 minutes in the middle of a busy floor session Thursday so Democrats could meet privately across the street with the environmental activist and former hedge fund titan to talk about his pet cause, climate change.

Steyer says he'll pour $1 million into legislative races in California this year on behalf of candidates who support environmental causes.

The gathering at the headquarters of the California State Employees Association rankled some Democrats as well as Republicans, who pointed out that Steyer's political action committee, NextGen Climate, has a registered lobbyist in Sacramento. Meeting with a deep-pockets contributor, they said, could be seen as violating the spirit of the Senate's ban on campaign fundraising in the final month of the session.

"If anyone thinks the topic of money didn't come up in that conversation, I have a bridge I want to sell you," said Peter DeMarco, spokesman for Senate Republican leader Bob Huffof Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County).

"There was no conversation about money and no conversation about pending bills," countered Democratic consultant Jason Kinney, an adviser to both Steyer and Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

"Let's be clear," Kinney said. "He was here to talk about what he always talks about - the defining crisis of our generation, which is meeting the climate challenge."

On that front, the hottest issue on the state level is oil companies' campaign to roll back the scheduled January extension of cap-and-trade emissions rules to refineries - an extension that many experts believe will lead to a 20-cent-per-gallon bump in gas prices.

Also on the agenda is a possible oil-extraction tax on big energy - revenue that would be funneled to taxpayers. Enviros have long dreamed of such a tax, but have never been able to get it through Sacramento.

That's the political climate, at least, that Steyer hopes to change with his million dollars.

In the bag: After a tense standoff, a statewide plastic bag ban cleared the Assembly, thanks to a backroom deal between Safeway and unions over the supermarket chain's pending merger with Albertsons.

The $9.5 billion merger could mean closing 50 to 60 Safeway and Albertsons stores statewide and threatens to put hundreds of unionized clerks out of work.

The union is worried that nonunion outfits such as Walmart, which is looking to expand with smaller grocery outlets, will scoop up the closed stores.

Sources say that the big grocers want the bag ban not so much because they'll profit from the 10 cents apiece they would charge for paper if plastic were outlawed, but because pushing customers to bring their own bags means the stores won't have to give out millions of their own anymore.

BART reversal:A combination of public outcry and election-year politics prompted the BART Board of Directors to end the perk of free passes for life for themselves and their families.

The perk still goes to all BART workers who retire after age 50 with five years on the job.

In the case of board members, BART board President Joel Keller moved in July to limit the free rides to directors who leave the board after at least eight years.

The public was not impressed, and let directors know it.

BART board member Robert Raburn, who is facing a tough re-election fight in his Oakland district, got the message and moved to kill the perk altogether for directors after they leave office.

"It was pretty clear that if we went to the voters with any kind of bond or tax measure, the free passes could be used to make us appear insincere about needing more money," Keller said.

Upshot: The BART board voted 6-2 on Thursday to limit the freebies to current directors and their spouses.

Dissenting votes were cast by Tom Radulovich and John McPartland, who also happens to be a retired BART worker himself - so he still gets a free pass.

Company town: "I want everyone going along I-880 to know they are going through Fremont and that it is the home of Tesla," Mayor Bill Harrisontold us the other day.

Thursday night, the mayor got his wish when the city's Planning Commission voted to override the city's billboard ban and allow a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-high sign to go up next to the Tesla plant.

"Think of a sign five school buses long and two buses high," Harrison said.

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